It's Perfectly Safe
by Isabel5
Summary: Sequel to There's Always A Device. Ever since moving to Eureka Jack Carter had come to hate the phrase "It's perfectly safe" and Nathan isn't making it any better.


**Title**: It's Perfectly Safe  
**Fandom**: Eureka  
**Pairing**: Nathan/Jack  
**Rating**: PG -13  
**Spoilers:** None  
**Summary:** Jack really hated that phrase.  
**Author's Note:** Sequal to "There's Always A Device". Set before Season Three but a little AU, no Nathan/Allison ever happened.  
**Disclaimer:** Don't own really want.

"It's perfectly safe." Jack Carter hated that phrase. There was a time when he himself had uttered those very words.

When Zoe was eight and decided she wanted to join the peewee football league, Jack had been fine with it but Abby was worried, Zoe being the only girl. "It's perfectly safe." Jack had told her. It was flag football, not tackle. He'd been right, in fact it was Zoe that was consistently being benched for unnecessary roughness.

When they redid the kitchen and Jack was convinced that they had paid enough money to other people to do jobs that he himself was more than capable of, he decided to install the new light fixtures. Abby said he was going to electrocute himself and Jack told her, "It's perfectly safe." He'd turned off the breaker and didn't even shock himself once. The lights never worked right but it was, as he told her, perfectly safe.

He used the phrase countless times in his career as a US Marshall and he'd always been right. It wasn't until he came to Eureka that he lost faith in the phrase. In Nathan's first week as the head of GD, Jack had been concerned that they were allowing a very scatterbrained scientist to have unlimited access to highly explosive chemicals. Nathan scoffed and told him that the man was looking for a stronger laundry detergent and stain fighter, not trying to make napalm, and besides Fargo was supervising him. "It's perfectly safe." Nathan said before dismissing Jack from his office.

When he had to make a trip out to Global the next day and observed the smoldering hole in the building where the good doctor's lab used to be, that was the first time Jack realized that "It's perfectly safe" wasn't always the case. It was also the first time that Jack realized he couldn't trust Fargo with anything more important than a coffee order, and he'd since realized Fargo was even capable of screwing that up. He'd heard the phrase about twice a week since he came to Eureka. He'd been there two years, fifty two weeks a year, two times a week so at minimum he'd heard the phrase two hundred and eight times. He could count on one hand the number of times it was actually perfectly safe.

He had the distinct impression he was about to hear it again. He leaned against the counter in the kitchen sipping his beer as Nathan looked at him expectantly. "I can't believe I didn't see this coming." Jack set the beer on the counter. "The two of you ganging up on me." He shook his head. "Not going to happen Nathan, no way no how."

"Stop being so stubborn, and we aren't ganging up on you." Nathan sipped his own beer.

"Oh come on, all day long she's been bothering me about this, and I get home to have a nice diner and you jump on me about it."

"It's a party Jack, a simple party to celebrate the end of the school year. It'll be here where you, SARAH and I can chaperone. It's perfectly…"

"Don't even." Jack warned him.

"Ok." Nathan held up his hands. "Ok, I'll drop it." He took another sip of his beer. "But don't think that'll stop her."

"I'll deal with her." Jack sighed. "So what…" Jack was cut off when Nathan's phone beeped. He cringed and pulled it out of his pocket, reading something on the screen. He sighed and stood up, taking one last sip of his beer. "Ah, come on, you've been there for the past two days straight. I had to threaten Allison with some labor law violations just to get you to dinner tonight." Jack whined.

"Five minutes." Nathan promised. "Thirty tops."

"Dinner." Jack said. This was their seventh date and they had yet to actually finish one.

"SARAH how much longer until dinner?" Nathan asked.

"The roast needs another forty five minutes." SARAH said.

"See, I'll be back way before that." Nathan assured Jack, giving him a kiss on the cheek and heading to the door. "SARAH door."

The door opened and Zoe stood there surprised. "Hey Nathan." She looked in the house where Jack was plopping down on the couch and turning the game on. "How'd it go with him?"

"It didn't." Nathan said apologetically. "He's being particularly stubborn tonight."

"Damn right I am." Jack popped his head up from the couch. "Oh by the way, don't think that all this party stuff made me forget about that ridiculous request you had Fargo put on my desk this morning."

"It's not ridiculous." Nathan stepped out of the house.

"You want permission to blow up Copernicus Park." Jack said incredulously. "How is that not ridiculous."

"Well, one, we're not asking permission, we're merely informing you of our intent. Two, we're aren't blowing up the park, we are testing a device from Global that will result in a controlled explosion in a small mainly unused corner of the park."

"A controlled explosion? How do you control an explosion?" Jack asked.

"Actually." Zoe started and Jack glared at her. She immediately shut up.

"Don't worry Jack, it's perfectly…"

"SARAH door." Jack screamed cutting Nathan off. Zoe put her hands on her hips and frowned at Jack. "Don't you start with me, a party?"

"Come on dad, it's not like it's never been done in the history of the universe. People have parties all the time, I've had a party before."

"Yeah?" Jack sat up. "And look how well that turned out."

"Actually." Zoe smiled. "My party was fine. You on the other hand managed to get yourself stuck in GD while the building tried to kill you and General Mansfield threatened to wipe Global off the map."

"You see." Jack smiled.

"You're not actually going to suggest that my party was responsible for that?" Zoe balked.

"Stranger things have happened." Jack joked with her.

"Ok, how about this." Zoe sat down on the couch. "You and Nathan, Jo and Zane, you can all be here, you can chaperone, would that make you feel better?"

"Marginally." Jack said carefully. "But I want to see your report card before I make my final decision." Zoe jumped up. "And, you can't keep skirting around curfew, and you'll do you're chores when I ask you."

"Yes, to all of it." Zoe smiled. "Thank you, you're the best dad ever."

"I haven't said yes." Jack screamed after her as she ran up the stairs, no doubt to call Pilar. "Get your homework done, Nathan's coming back for dinner."

"Sure thing." Zoe screamed down the steps.

"This is probably the worst idea ever." Jack sighed going back to the game.

Nathan lifted his head up startled when he heard the door to his office slide open. He turned to see Jack standing there carrying a foil wrapped plate with a wry grin on his face. "Dinner." Nathan groaned. "Did I miss it?"

"By about four hours." Jack said.

"You didn't have to bring me a plate." Nathan stood up and tried to straighten his clothes.

"I didn't." Jack dropped the plate on the desk. "It's from SARAH, I had a call down the street but she wouldn't let me leave until I promised to bring it to you."

"Well tell her thank you." Nathan nudged the plate with his hand. "I'm really sorry, I lost track of time and at some point, obviously I fell asleep."

"It's fine." Jack sighed. "You're exhausted. Go home, get some sleep, maybe this weekend?"

"Definitely this weekend." Nathan said.

Jack nodded and turned to leave the office. "Oh and by the way." He smiled when he got to the door. "Pending a good report card, you're chaperoning a party next weekend."

"You caved?" Nathan smirked.

"I didn't cave. I simply weighed the options and decided that the best…yeah I caved." Jack sighed. "It's getting increasingly harder to say no to her now that she brings logic into the argument."

"She didn't buy your theory that her parties create strange events around town?" Nathan smirked.

"Not even a little." Jack shook his head. "Goodnight Nathan."

Jack pulled the jeep up to the edge of Copernicus Park. Jo had the whole park cordoned off, "Just as a precaution." Nathan said. Jack was wondering how something that was "perfectly safe" required closing off the entire park. He sighed climbing out of the jeep and closed the door. He tapped the hood of the jeep before shoving off and heading toward the gathering crowd.

Nathan tapped the screen of his computer a few times before handing it off to Fargo and checking his watch. "Five minutes."

"We'll be ready Dr. Stark." Fargo assured him.

"So what exactly is it these things do?" Jack pointed to the device on the table. Nathan turned and looked at him with a look of wonder on his face. Jack rolled his eyes. "Besides blow things up? I mean you're Global Dynamics, you aren't out here testing supercharged dynamite." Fargo turned and looked at the Sherriff as Nathan sighed. "Wait you're not are you?" This time Fargo snorted.

"Carter." Nathan had this annoying ability to turn things off when he was working, like being able to call Jack by his first name. "No one uses dynamite anymore."

"Oh come on." Jack sighed. "Someone has to use dynamite, like demolition guys, or, or prospectors."

"Prospectors? Really?" Nathan smiled and Jack realized it was his truly amused smile. "Jack, in your world does everyone look like cartoon characters? Do I look like Wile E. Coyote? Standing here with a large red plunger marked TNT?" Jack glared and Nathan smiled larger. "No really that would explain a lot." Jack just continued to glare.

"Are you done?" There was a small smile on the edges of his lips so Nathan knew he wasn't too upset.

"Yes." Nathan smiled. "They're not just supercharged dynamite." Nathan motioned Jack over to the tent that was set up. "Well you remember Dr. Hood's tunneler?" Jack nodded. "I got the idea after that, I was thinking about the dolphins they were trying to train to be suicide bombers in WWII?"

"You mean those stories about strapping a bomb to a dolphin and having it bump into ships to blow them up?" Jack asked frowning.

"Yeah, only it wouldn't work because the dolphins just went wherever they wanted to. They couldn't control them." Nathan explained.

"You mean you guys…"

"No." Nathan shook his head a little offended that Jack could think they would do something like that. "No, but it's based on combining those two ideas." Nathan moved over to the device. "We created a much smaller, remote controlled, tunneler."

"And strapped a bomb to its back." Jack caught on.

"We integrated the bomb into the tunneler but basically yeah." Nathan nodded.

"So you're going to use these things to tunnel underground until it hits something and then blow it up?"

"Blowing up a building from underneath is actually safer that dropping a bomb on it." Nathan said. "We could pin point locations more accurately, decrease the risk to civilians, and it would be undetectable by any current tracking systems."

"If it works and you guys can control your dolphins." Jack smiled. Nathan just glared at him. "Sorry, so why are you testing it in the park?"

"Most of Eureka's facilities have large underground areas, the only other place large enough is currently in use by another classified project." Nathan shrugged. "Besides, Henry was going to tear down the old garden shed anyway."

"And you get to blow something up." Jack pointed out.

"That too." Nathan smiled. "There are perks to my job." Fargo caught Nathan's eyes and he nodded. "Ok, we're about to start."

Jack smiled. "Can I used the remote control?" Nathan looked at him confused. "Come on I had RC cars when I was kid, I was pretty good at it." He smiled.

"Not…remote controlled by computers." Nathan shook his head. "What decade do you live in?"

Jack opened his mouth only to have Fargo interrupt him. "Five seconds Dr. Stark." Nathan and Jack both started counting in their heads only when five seconds was up nothing happened. The shed didn't blow, it didn't even shake.

"Fargo!" Nathan screamed.

"I don't understand. The computer says…" But Fargo never got to tell them what the computer said because behind them in a deafening blast the sundial exploded into the air and rained down on the park in large concrete chunks. Jack and Nathan ducked under the tent as dirt, grass, and debris fell to the ground.

Nathan and Jack looked at the mess, then at Fargo, then at each other. Jack opened his mouth but Nathan held up a hand. "Don't even say it."

Two weeks later Jack was walking around the bunker, squeezing in between teenagers, holding two beers over his head as he made his way from the kitchen the greenhouse where Nathan was waiting for him. "Hey, two feet." He screamed over the music and the low murmur of voices at Zoe who was leaning over and whispering something to Lucas.

"Jack, they're in a room full of people, her dad, her dad's boyfriend, and deputy Lupo, you really think Lucas is going to try anything?" Nathan laughed grabbing the beer.

"I don't trust him as far as Fargo can throw him." Jack sneered then froze with the beer halfway to his lips. "Wait, did you say, boyfriend?" Jack turned to Nathan.

Nathan paused then took a long sip of beer. "It appears so." He finally answered.

Jack smirked slightly. "So you're my boyfriend?" He asked.

"That would seem to be the case." Nathan set his beer down and finally turned to look at Jack apprehensively.

"Nathan." Jack said in his serious voice.

"Is that ok?" Nathan finally asked.

Jack leaned back against the wall and thought for a minute. "Well we haven't even finished a date, or had more than one real kiss." He took a sip of beer and nodded.

"You think it's too fast?" Nathan stood up straighter. "I understand."

"No wait." Jack grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. "Look, I spent the first two years here thinking you hated me, We don't agree on anything, it's unlikely that we ever will agree on anything, or even spend enough time together to realize it if we did agree on anything but we live in a town where at any moment we could get blow up, or sucked through a worm hole, or caught in a time loop…"

"There's no such thing as time loops." Nathan smiled.

Jack glared and he shut up. "What I'm trying to say is, I don't think in Eureka there is such a thing as moving too fast."

"So that's a yes then?" Nathan asked.

"Are you asking me if I want to go steady?" Jack smirked and Nathan glared. "Yeah, I think I like the boyfriend thing."

"Good, now that's out of the way, do you think I could convince you to take a walk with me, give the kids some time alone, give us some time alone." Nathan stood up.

"Leave the party?" Jack scoffed. "No way."

"Come on, the nights been pretty quiet so far, except for that whole misunderstanding between SARAH and Zoe over what constituted good music, I agree with SARAH by the way." Nathan mused. He noticed that Jack was staring at him incredulously. "What?"

"I cannot believe you just said that." Jack sputtered.

"What?" Nathan looked confused. "Come on you can't actually believe that a fifteen year old girl who made more money than Bill Gates before she hit puberty can actually sing about heartbreak."

"What?" Jack shook his head. "No, of course I agree with you and SARAH, I'm not even sure you could call that music, much less good…that's not what I was talking about." Jack forced himself to get back on point. "I'm talking about the thing you said about the night being quiet so far."

"What?" Nathan asked.

"I can't believe you just jinxed us like that." Jack said. "You never, ever say something like that, it's like saying something can't get any worse, and then inevitably it gets worse."

"You can't believe in jinxes." Nathan smirked at him.

"You need to spin around three times counterclockwise and spit."

"I beg your pardon." Nathan gaped at him.

"You heard me, spin and spit." Jack made a spinning motion with his hands as Nathan just stared. Jack set his drink on the table and grabbed Nathan by the shoulders attempting to spin him around.

"Jack, stop." Nathan stayed where he was, fighting Jack.

"Shut up and spin, and look around for any spontaneous holes in space and time." Jack said.

Zoe noticed her dad and Stark in some sort of bizarre tug of war and she excused herself from Lucas. "Hey, what the hell are you two doing?" Zoe snapped, Jack and Nathan stopped and looked around, realizing half the party was staring at them.

"Nathan just jinxed us." Jack looked around the room fearfully, expecting giant bats to manifest in the air or something.

"I don't care, you guys need to cut it out." Zoe glared at the both of them.

Just as Nathan prepared to defend himself, the lights went out in the bunker and the emergency lights turned on. "SARAH." Jack called out confused. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry Jack, but we are currently under attack from all sides." SARAH said. "I had to initiate level four lockdown to ensure your continued safety."

"Attack from what?" Jack asked confused. "SARAH, the front and the back are clear." He said studying the surveillance cameras.

"Not from the surface Jack, from under the ground. Small remote explosives of some kind." SARAH said. "I can't tell anymore at this stage." But Jack was already turning to glare at Nathan and Zoe.

"Small underground explosives?" Jack said in a clipped voice as one of them detonated and rocked the bunker.

Jack grabbed onto the counter as Nathan reached out for Zoe. "Crap." Zoe said when they regained their balance. "He's never going to let me have a party again is he?" She looked up at Nathan.

"You?" Nathan scoffed. "I'm never going to get to test anything at Global again, ever."

"Nathan." Jack screamed.

"I'm on it." Nathan assured him pulling out his phone. "No signal, SARAH, I can't get a call out."

"It's part of the lockdown." SARAH explained.

"But I need to get in touch with Dr. Fargo." Nathan said.

"I've sent a message to Dr. Fargo already. He says to tell you he's on it." SARAH said.

"Fargo's on it?" Jack scoffed. "Is there anyone else that isn't comforted by this?" He looked around the room and noticed Pilar and Lucas raising their hands.

"You don't give Fargo enough credit." Nathan said. "I say we just sit down and relax, wait for this whole thing to be over."

"I don't give Fargo enough credit?" Jack laughed. "Seventy five percent of the things that have happened to me in this town since I got here can be traced back to Fargo. I'll give him credit for that."

"He'll take care of this, figure it out, in the mean time." Nathan sat down and grabbed his beer. "I'm going to finish my beer and relax. It's not often that there's nothing I can do, it's like a mini vacation."

"A mini…" Jack was cut off when another explosion rocked the bunker, the lights flickered a bit but cups didn't even fall off the counter.

"So a mini vacation in San Francisco." Nathan shrugged.

"So we do nothing?" Jack asked after a minute.

"There's nothing we can do." Nathan said. "SARAH isn't going to let us out, she's not going to let us call out, and the tunnelers can only be controlled by Fargo's computer. Finish your beer, let Zoe have her party, relax."

"Relax with bombs going off?" Jack said.

"Jack, the walls of the bunker are concrete, five feet thick, encased in inch thick titanium." Nathan pointed out. "It's perfectly safe."

Jack glared at him but noticed that the kids all seemed to be fine with the whole thing, in fact they were taking the emergency lighting in stride, pretending it was mood lighting, they didn't seem to be worried in the least that they could explode at any second. Most of them didn't seem to be worried about much of anything except how far they could get their tongues down each other's throat. "Fine." Jack sighed and held out his hand to pull Nathan up. "We'll relax, but first you've got to help me pry these kids apart." He pulled Nathan up. "There's a squirt bottle under the sink." Nathan looked at Jack and he smiled. "Trust me, it's just like turning on the water hose, only less clean up after."

Nathan smiled and grabbed the squirt bottle.

By the time Nathan and Jack had gotten each kid at least two feet apart from each other, with threats of another squirt from the bottle if they didn't stay that way, Jack and Nathan retired to a corner of the kitchen where they were on their own but could still keep an eye on the kids and talk. It was the first time they'd spent a whole two hours together with nothing more pressing to do than have another beer and occasionally squirt a few kids. By the time Fargo managed to call off the tunnelers, Allison forced her way into the bunker, freaked out and was completely surprised by the fact that Jack wasn't freaking out.

He assured her that he was fine, that he hadn't received any sort of head trauma, and managed to convince her it was ok to leave him alone. They herded all the kids out of the bunker and back to their own homes, most of whom were patting Zoe on the back and pronouncing it even cooler than the party from the year before. By one in the morning, Zoe was passed out on the couch while Jack and Nathan cleaned up the cups and plates. "So I think I can official call this our first completed date." Nathan said dropping a pile of half eaten pizza slices into the trash bag.

"Actually you can't." Jack said. Nathan looked at him confused. "See, a date is only over when someone is walked to the door and given a kiss goodnight."

"Ok, really, in your head, is it 1957?" Nathan asked. Jack threw a handful of paper towels at him from his perch at the sink. "Look, here in the twenty first century." Nathan set his trash bag down and walked over to him. "There are other ways that a date can end."

"Really?" Jack smiled as Nathan slid closer, pinning Jack to the counter. "And what would that entail?"

"Well." Nathan leaned closer and placed a soft kiss on Jack's lips. "One person can invite the other person inside for say, some coffee."

"Would you like me to make you some coffee?" SARAH asked.

"No." Jack and Nathan both screamed at her.

"So they have coffee?" Jack asked trailing his hands up hands up Nathan's arms to rest on his neck. "Then what?"

"Well, there will probably be some awkward tension." Nathan kissed Jack's neck.

"Check." Jack managed to mumble while suppressing a shiver as Nathan moved his hands under Jack's sweater to the small of his back.

"Then maybe the removal of some extraneous articles of clothing." Nathan lifted Jack's sweater over his head leaving him in only his undershirt.

"Really?" Jack smiled. "Then what?"

"I'm sure you can use your imagination." Nathan said pulling Jack in for a much more passionate kiss. At some point Nathan's jacket fell on to the floor and Jack's belt landed in the sink. Before Nathan could manage to get Jack's pants unbuttoned Zoe let out a very loud snore and then turned over, flopping onto her back on the couch.

Jack pulled away and rested his forehead on Nathan's and laughed. "Do any of your scenarios involve teenage girls with severely deviated septum's sleeping in the next room?"

"Not even a little." Nathan sighed. "Walk me to the door, kiss me goodnight?"

"I can do that." Jack smiled picking up Nathan's jacket for him and walking him to the door. He leaned in for the kiss goodnight and they both froze when Zoe's voice rang out.

"You can't put the hats on the frogs." She said. "That would totally negate the magnetic field."

Nathan and Jack tried to stop themselves from laughing but they couldn't. "Has she always talked in her sleep?"

"Since she was twelve." Jack nodded. "Although since we've moved here the outbursts have gotten much more interesting. I better bring her up to bed."

"I'll call you tomorrow." Nathan kissed him softly and walked out of the bunker.

Jack walked over and gathered Zoe in his arms and headed up the stairs. "Don't worry Dad, you can mix the salted pretzels with the sulfur, the pretzels won't destabilize the formula."

"Good to know." Jack smiled as he opened her door and laid her on the bed.

"The whole thing is perfectly safe." She mumbled before turning over and burrowing into her pillows.

"You know, somehow, that, I can believe." Jack said before turning off the light and closing the door.


End file.
